Background
In January 2004, Li Wang was allegedly assaulted by her landlord in New South Wales. She subsequently complained that Senior Constable Kennedy of the NSW Police conducted a tainted investigation marked by disrespect, deception, and interference with her pursuit of justice. Those events became the seed of more than two decades of litigation. Beginning with District Court proceedings in 2008, Wang pursued claims against the State of New South Wales — vicariously liable for Kennedy’s alleged intentional torts — through at least ten separate sets of proceedings and fourteen versions of a statement of claim. The litigation travelled to the NSW Court of Appeal on multiple occasions and reached the High Court, which refused special leave to appeal in December 2020.
On 22 January 2026, Wang, self-represented, filed a fresh statement of claim naming the State of New South Wales as first defendant and the Commonwealth of Australia as second defendant. The claim against the State reprised the allegations about Kennedy’s conduct and added accusations that Crown Solicitor staff, court registrars, and various judges had “illegally” interfered with her earlier proceedings through forged documents, improper consent orders, and other abuses. The claim against the Commonwealth sought $10,000 in legal costs, asserting that a High Court Registry officer had improperly closed her 2020 special leave application before any judicial order was made. Both defendants filed notices of motion to have the proceedings summarily dismissed.
At the hearing on 18 June 2026, Wang appeared unrepresented. She declined interpreter assistance and confirmed she relied solely on written submissions, stating she was “unable to make a verbal argue.” The matter came before Elkaim AJ.
The Court’s Holding
Elkaim AJ dismissed the proceedings against both defendants pursuant to r 13.4 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW) and ordered Wang to pay each defendant’s costs. His Honour adopted in substance the reasoning of Schmidt AJ, who had dismissed Wang’s immediately preceding (ninth) set of proceedings in December 2023 (Wang v State of New South Wales [2023] NSWSC 1478). Elkaim AJ found the statement of claim was confused, vague, and lacking in particulars of the alleged tortious conduct — deficiencies that had persisted across all prior iterations. Although a cause of action against Kennedy could be discerned in outline, this was the tenth proceeding and fourteenth statement of claim; Wang had been given every opportunity to plead correctly and had declined pro bono assistance offered by the Court on more than one occasion. The proceedings were held to be vexatious and an abuse of process under r 13.4, and inconsistent with the overriding purpose in s 56 of the Civil Procedure Act 2005 (NSW) to resolve disputes justly, quickly, and cheaply.
As to the Commonwealth, Elkaim AJ found that the pleading disclosed no viable cause of action whatsoever. The claim rested on the proposition that a High Court Registrar had improperly closed the 2020 special leave application, but the High Court’s own published reasons (Wang v State of New South Wales [2020] HCASL 266) showed that Bell J and Gageler J had directed the Registrar to draw up and seal the dismissal order — the Registrar acted on judicial instruction. The $10,000 costs claim was inexplicable: the case numbers cited appeared to relate to Supreme Court proceedings in which costs orders had been made against Wang, not in her favour, and there was no basis on which those costs could be claimed from the Commonwealth.
His Honour also noted that a limitation period issue — whether the 2004 causes of action are now time-barred — had already been flagged by Bellew J and the Court of Appeal in earlier rounds but had never been resolved on the merits, a further obstacle facing any future attempt to re-litigate.
Key Takeaways
- A court may summarily dismiss proceedings under r 13.4 UCPR where their continuation would constitute an abuse of process, even if the underlying cause of action is theoretically cognisable, when the plaintiff has had repeated opportunities to plead it properly and has failed to do so.
- Re-filing materially similar claims that have already been dismissed — including by appellate courts — does not avoid the abuse-of-process doctrine; the vices of the prior proceedings attach to the new filing.
- A claim against a government entity arising from a Registrar’s administrative act will fail where the act was carried out on the express direction of judicial officers, as no independent cause of action against the entity is disclosed.
- Section 56 of the Civil Procedure Act 2005 (NSW), which imposes an overriding purpose of just, quick, and cheap resolution, independently supports dismissal of repetitive and inefficient proceedings.
Why It Matters
Wang v State of New South Wales [2026] NSWSC 708 is a clear illustration of the limits courts will impose on serial re-litigation. Despite the absence of formal vexatious-litigant orders under the Vexatious Proceedings Act 2008 (NSW) — which the State had foreshadowed but not pursued — the Supreme Court demonstrated that r 13.4 and the abuse-of-process doctrine are sufficient to terminate proceedings that have become an endless cycle of re-pleading the same grievances. The decision reinforces that litigants cannot circumvent final judgments, including Court of Appeal and High Court refusals, by commencing fresh proceedings with marginally reworded statements of claim.
The case also highlights a recurring tension in unrepresented-litigant matters: courts must balance access to justice against the burden imposed on defendants and the justice system by repetitive, non-compliant pleadings. Here, the Court noted with regret that none of Wang’s proceedings had ever reached a merits hearing, yet costs orders had accumulated against her — a consequence the Court attributed to Wang’s own choices, including her refusal of pro bono assistance, rather than to any procedural unfairness.